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Palaeo Diet

Palaeo Diet: Eat or be Eaten (published 2017) is a table top hunting game set in a pre-historic world where our hunter-gatherer ancestors (and their hominid cousins) had to hunt and eat, or be hunted and eaten. The game seeks to model a time when humans are not yet in control of the world around them - a time when the landscape could just as easily give succour to a struggling tribe, as it could cripple a thriving people.

The game is designed to be used for solo games or for (mostly) co-operative play with up to four players. Models are divided broadly into three categories:

1) Hunters, armed hominids activated and controlled directly by players. Hunters may attempt up to three actions per turn, although if they attempt to do too much at once, they can get a bit stressed out and mess up. There are different equipment types and a range of optional traits that can be diced for to give each of your tribe members a back-story and personality.

2) Hounds, domesticated wolves or dogs under the limited control of players. A hound has to activate after its master and is often quite obedient. However, when it does fail activation rolls, a hound's instincts take over and it automatically conducts actions out of the player's control.

3) Beasts, non-player models that react to the actions of hunters (and hounds). Ranging from giant grazers and apex predators, down to fluffy little critters, beasts are never directly controlled. They react to various triggers and their actions are randomly determined against their stimulus.

Hunting parties normally consist of between two and eight hunters in total, divided equally between the players. Any number of beasts may be placed on the table but, as a rule of thumb, the total bulk of the beasts (a determination of both their number of wounds and their food value as a carcass) should be equal to, or more than, the number of hunters. The introductory scenario, for example, sets four hunters against a single mammoth (bulk 4).